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MASS-MEETING 



HELD AT THE 



PEOPLES CHURCH, JANUARY Gth, 190ft 



THOMAS E. KANE'S 

Brilliant Address ; 

"EtiSTORY OF THE 
SOUTI# AFRICAN REPUBLICS. 



From the "Daily Volkszeitung", January 10, 
1900, St. Paul, Minn. _. 






Conr 



4 



'- 



INTRODUCTION. 



The condition of affairs in Sotith Africa 
and the cruel war there being waged by 
the British government, for che purpose 
of destroying the two little struggling 
republics, represented by the Transvaal 
and the Orange Free State, necessarily 
appeal to every liberty loving citizen of 
the United States. Therefore, on the 
18th of December 1899, at the request 
of the fcAv American citizens of Holland 
birth, residing in St. Paul, a call was 
issued to the citizens of this city, under 
w^hich a committee was formed, and n 
mass-meeting of the citizens called to 
meet at the Peoples Church, on the 6th 
of January 1900, to enable such citizens 
to express their sympathy with the 
Boers in their present struggle. The 
Executive Committee represented all 
nationalities, all politics, and all re- 
ligious beliefs in the City of St. Paul, and 
the speakers at the meeting, as will be 
seen by the names following, represented 
the same elements. The audience 
numbered between four and five thous- 
and, filling the hall to its utmost ca- 
pacity, and many were turned away. 
The character of the proceedings, the 
resolutions there adopted, follow in this 
pamphlet, and their consideration is 
asked from every fair-minded, liberty- 



loving citizen of the state of Minnesota. 
It is hoped, that the example of the 
citizens of St. Paul will be followed by 
their fellow citizens in every city and 
irillage in the state of Minnesota, and 
other states of the Union, so that the 
people will not only have the opportun- 
ity, but will actually express their views 
on the subject, and in that hope this 
pamphlet is printed and disseminated. 

THEO. F. KOCH, 

See. Executive Comm. of pro-Boer mass-meeting. 
St. Paul, Minn, Jan. 12th, 1900. 



''4\ 



THE MEETING. 



Hon. Moses E. Clapp, Chairman of the 
meeting, arose amid great applause, call- 
ing the meeting to order, addressed the 
audience as follows: 

Ladies and Gentlemen: In calling 
this meeting to order, it is proper that I 
should state the cause which has led to 
this assembly, and the purpose of this 
gathering, and this is particularly import- 
ant in view of the fact that among some 
of our people in this city the cause and 
purpose of this meeting it entirely mis- 
apprehended. 

In southern Africa there are two repub- 
lics, commonly known as the Boer Re- 
publics, the word "Boer" in their language 
meaning "farmer". These republics con- 
sist of the Transvaal and the Orange 
Free State. They differ very slightly in 
their government." 

(At this point Gov. Lind entered and 
was given an ovation.) General Clapp 
then resumed his address as follows: 



right of franchise according to the ideas 
of the Salisbury ministry. Now, as 1 un- 
derstand the fact, it formerly required 
14 years of residence in the Transvaal be- 
fore a man couid become naturalized. 
This was finally reduced to 7 years, .jiu 
then the Boers, rather than go to war 
with a great and almost irresistible pow- 
er, submitted to the humiliation of chang- 
ing the internal arrangement of their gov- 
ernment at the dictation of a foreign pow- 
er, and changed the term from 7 to 5 
years^ the length of time required in this 
country. (Applause). 

But they say that in the Boer republics 
a foreigner cannot enter the upper house 
of its parliament. Well, my friends, un- 
der the laws of the United States no for- 
eign born citizen can be President, and 
you and I have the right, if we so aesire, 
witn the rest of the people of the country, 
to prescribe the same qualifications and 
the same limitations to the office of Sen- 
ator, member of the lower House of Con- 
gress, or any other office that the people 
of this land see fit, to apply it 'to. 

Take the republics of South America, 
and in many of those republics no foreign 
born citizen can be either President, Sena- 
tor or Judge. 

Those are matters that pertain exclus- 
ively to the people who make and main- 
tain a government, and it is not the func- 
tion, nor even the right of any foreign 
power to dictate as to that policy. (Ap- 
plause). And it must be remembered 
that under the English government ,ex- 
cept by dispensation of the sovereign pow- 
er, no alien can ever enter its Upper 
House of Parliament. 

Again, they say that in the Transvaal, 
the Transvaalers prescribe a religeous 
test; that a man must be a member of the 
State Church of the Transvaal ere he can 



hold office in that country. It is within 
the lives of men in this audience that 
there was a religeous test in England it- 
self. They can recall the long and bitter 
struggle before that test was removed, 
and what right has that government to 
say that a policy that was pursued for 
centuries is cause for their interfering 
with the internal affairs of the Transvaal 
republic. (Applause). 

Now, they make another charge. They 
say that the Transvaalers were opposed 
to the movement which resulted in the 
extinction of slavery, ignoring the fact 
that before their Great Trek, they sol- 
emnly declared that the government 
which they were going to inaugurate 
should contain a fundamental prescription 
against slavery. And we cannot forget 
that for over half a century, that blood 
hallowed flag which you and I love, waiv- 
ed over millions of slaves in our own fair 
land. 

Another claim which they make is that 
the license imposed for removing the min- 
eral wealth of their country is excessive. 
As I understand, they charge a license 
of 5 per cent for removing the mineral 
wealth from their land. While I am ad- 
vised that in British Columbia the license 
fee is 10 per cent. 

Now, what is the lesson to be drawn 
from this ? With the history of our own 
progress, the awful sacrifice we made to 
rid ourselves of slavery, it must be recog- 
nized that a republic fresh born cannot 
have that complete development that the 
republic of a century may have, but if 
these people can be let alone, the govern- 
ment which they have established and 
maintained for years, twice recognized in 
treaty convention by the English govern- 
ment, will dev^elop as rapidly as any of 
the other governments upon this earth. 



10 

Now, I have tried to state the alleged 
reasons fairly, you will say at once that 
they are trivial and unimportant. Cer- 
tainly they are. There is not a sensible, 
thinking man in this land who believes 
that these reasons are the correct reasons 
for the acts of the Salisbury government. 
When a man gives absurd and ridiculous 
reasons for his acts, you have the right 
Ito assume that the reasons thus given 
are false. 

I will tell you what, in my humble 
opinion, is the real reason of this war 
with the Boer republics. Some man, I 
do not know, who he is because he lacked 
the courage to put his signature to the 
paper,* has been flooding this city with an 
anonymous document pretending to give 
the reasons for the war against the Boers, 
and the burden of his song is that if the 
Boers prevail, a great republic will be es- 
tablished in South Africa over which the 
English government will have no control. 
(Applause). But that is not all. If we 
could blot from the page of earth's his- 
tory the horrors and the suffering which 
the world has inherited from its unlawful 
lust for gain, we could change and bright- 
en the page of the world's history. 

Down in the Transvaal are the mines. 
There sits the evil genius of the hour, Ce- 
cil Rhodes, that prompted the acts of the 
British ministry under Salisbury and 
Chamberlain, and there you find the real 
cause of war. (Applause). 

Now, it is said, and I have been told in 
the last few days, that it is none of our 
business what England does in South 
Africa. If so, then why this gathering, 
why these women, why these old men and 
these young, save that it is the business 
of humanity to enter a protest against 
wrong? (Applause). And when Joseph 
Chamberlain stood up and said the na- 



u 

tions of Europe were against him, and the 
sympathies of the American people wer€ 
with him, he then challenged you and I 
as such citizens, to hold just such meet- 
ings as this, to refute his unjust and tin* 
fair accusation. (Applause). Whatevet 
might have been urged in sup';-"t of th« 
claim that we have no business talking 
about the war between the English minis- 
try and the Boer republics, the reason no 
longer exists, for Mr. Chamberlain has in- 
vited us to a discussion of this question, 
and I wish to-night that the man could 
be where he could gaze upon this audience. 

The man evidently has forgotten his- 
tory. He could not have studied human 
nature. He said that the nations of Eu- 
rope were against him, but the sympathy 
of America was with him. (Applause and 
Laughter) . 

Where does the sympathy and spirit 
of America come from? It comes from 
another source. From our naturalized 
two sources. There are those in our midst 
whose ancestors over a century ago bade 
defiance to that same power, and laid 
deep and broad the foundation of out 
own republic, with this difference, that 
our ancestors were a revolted peoplei 
where the Transvaalers are existing, re- 
cognized republic. Or it must come from 
another source. !brom our naturalized 
citizens, and they represent the free- 
est, the most liberty loving of the nation! 
of the earth, and Chamberlain imagined 
that while those nations were against 
him, the people whom the spirit of free- 
dom had prompted to leave there that 
they might breath the free air of America 
and mingle with the people whose tradi- 
tions go back to the American revolution, 
were with him. He must have been ig- 
norant of human nature, he must haVi 
forgotten history. 



13 

This is the most remarkable gathering 
ever witnessed in this city. It is remark- 
able in this, that creed, faith and nation- 
ality draw no line here, and no line in this 
audience. (Applause). 

While we are all American citizens, our 
first duty is to America, and the history 
of this country shows the promptness 
with which that duty has ever been re- 
cognized, yet it is natural that the people 
of this country, born abroad, inheriting 
the national affiliations of other countries, 
should deeply sympathize with such 
national affiliations. 

We have here to-night our Holland 
friends. It is natural they should be here. 
Oh I what a legacy is theirs in the heri- 
tage of liberty! Far back in the dawn of 
European history, some historian has 
plucked one single scene from oblivion. 
Upon one of the northern rivers of Eu- 
rope stands a broken bridge. Upon one 
end of that bridge stands a Homan con- 
queror, backed by the legions at whose 
sight the world turned pale with terror. 
Upon the other end of that bridge stood 
the brave Batavian, hurling defiance at 
the Roman conqueror, who had behind 
him his invincible legions. There the 
picture fades from history. We know not 
what became of either, but the historian 
snatched enough from oblivion to teach 
us that at that time the Northman stood 
there ready to battle for his home, and to 
battle for his rights. 

Twelve centuries later the Northerner 
and. Southerner stand again face to face. 
Th^. legions of Philip are hurled against 
the Netherlands, the invincible muske- 
teers of Spain are sent to shoot down the 
Hollanders, but they meet mere a resist- 
ance which was as stubborn as it was 
successful. They fought from year to 
year until fortresses and towns were tak- 



15 

en and ruined, until their country "was 
devastated. And then, in the despair of 
desparation, they cut the dikes that the 
ocean might take back the land which 
centuries of toil had won, rather than 
that it be given to a foreign foe. (Ap- 
plause). 

For almost a hundred years on battered 
wall and splintered deck they fought. 
They fought until Spain was compelled 
to retire and nurse her baffled, sullen 
hate. 

A few years later and the partially re- 
cuperated power of Spain bore down upon 
the shores of England. Every lover of 
liberty rejoices that they were huned 
back, but every student of history must 
remember that before that time, the pow- 
er of Spain had in part exhausted itself 
in the long years of warfare witli the 
Xetherlands. ( Appl ause ) . 

We have here our Irish friends. Ire- 
land, crushed, her people impoverished, 
but her heart encouraged, never cr^ ihed, 
and her sons to-night will address you 
from this platform. (Applause). 

We have here our German friends. True, 
Germany is still a mcnarthy, but we must 
remember that centuries ago, amid iaq 
forest fastnesses of Germany was -,Iven 
berth that bulwark of modern liberty, 
our boasted jury system. That irom 
Germany poured forth that courage and 
strength that checked the growing power 
of the old empire, and that now, year by 
year, solidifying their power, the spirit 
of liberty permeates the German people, 
and to-night the sons of Germany will 
address you from this platform. 

France, ground beneath the heel of op- 
pression, regenerate in her modern free- 
dom, has taken her place in the great sis- 
terhood of republics, and to-night her sons 
represent her here. 



14 

We have our Scandinavian friends. 
They too hold a royal legacy in the heri- 
tage of freedom. Long ago, when all 
Europe lay shrouded in darkness, when 
the smouldering fires of liberty seemed 
but dead and dying embers, there went 
up irom the midst of Europe a cry for 
help. In his home in the frozen north, 
Gustavus heard that cry, and like a 
mountain avalanche, he rushed down up- 
on the plains of Europe. 

The hords of despotism rallied beneath 
the banners of Wallenstein. On the field 
of Lutzen they met. Tyrants and des- 
pots laughed, and predicted that the snow 
king of the north would melt beneath the 
fierce rays of the sun of the south. Vain 
and idle prediction ! When the smoke of 
battle rolled away, victory perched upon 
the banners of Gustavus. On that field he 
yielded his life, a martyr to the cause of 
human liberty. But over the form of the 
dying king there hovered the spirit of lib- 
erty, fanning to fresh flames the smolder- 
ing embers of freedom, that by their re- 
newed light the people of Northern Eu- 
rope might maintain and persevere in 
their struggle for liberty^ (Applause). 

When this struggle between the Eng- 
lish government and the Salisbury i. m- 
istry broke out, there were Englishmen, 
like the great liberty loving Brice, who 
plead the injustice of the struggle. Un- 
prepared for the struggle, reverses came, 
which have awakened a national pride 
among the people. But we none the less 
cannot flinch from our duty in expressing 
our sympathies to-night for the Boers in 
their unequal struggle. 

Now, in opening this meeting with 
these remarks, I have trespassed upon the 
time of others. I know not, no one 
knows, what the outcome of this strug- 



m 



15 

gle will be, but one thing is certain, the 
Transvaal will be drenched with blood 
ere the people of that land yield to a for- 
eign foe. (Applause). Unfortunately it 
will be the blood of those who, are least 
respontsible for an unjust war. When the 
Salisbury government, inspired by that 
evil genius, Cecil Rhodes, made war upon 
the Transvaal, it forgot one thing, it for- 
got that the ancestors of the Boers, 300 
years ago, amid devastated fields and 
ruined cities, laid deep and broad the 
foundation of republican government. 
(Prolonged applause and cheering). 

The chairman then introduced his Ex- 
cellency, John Lind, Governor of Minne- 
sota, who spoke as follows: 

ADDRESS BY HON. JOHN LIND. 

Governor Lind: In view of the long 
list of speakers that the chairman has on 
the table it would ill become me to occupy 
much of your time this evening. In fact 
even if I desired to occupy more time, I 
would feel that perhaps it could be put 
into better advantage if I stepped out in 
the street. I happened to be a little tar- 
dy, and I must say to you frankly that 
while this is an immense audience there 
is a larger audience outside this building. 
(Applause.) 

This afternoon when my attention was 
called to this meeting again, over the tele- 
phone, I thought of an occasion in the 
house of representatives some years ago, 
when 1 had the honor to be a member of 
congress from this state, when a question 
concerning our Canadian relations was 
under discussion. A proposition was pend- 
ing in the house to cut off the right of 
shipping goods in transit, that is shipping 
goods through the New England states 



16 

in transit from our seaboard to Canada. 
I am not going into a discussion of that 
question, but, incidentally, our state be- 
ing very much interested in that discus- 
sion, I took part in it. On that occasion 
I used language, which I have copied from 
the congressional record of September 8, 
1888, as follows: "But, sir, I plead not 
for Canada, nor for England. I hate Eng- 
land, or rather, I hate and despise her pol- 4 
icy of dealing with other nations and peo- f 
pies weaker than herself. Her sense of 
right is measured by her power to defy 
it, her love of justice by the gold it will 
fetch." (Applause.) *'She enforces vice 
to replenish her exchequer. She enslaves 
and impoverishes every land and people 
that is caught in her toils." (Great Ap- 
plause.) At that time that I uttered that 
language, I was told by a friend of mine 
that it was a little harsh, but it amused 
me this afternoon, when I noticed in the 
Record a mark in brackets, after the ex- 
pression of this sentiment, "(Loud ap- 
plause on the republican side.)" ) Applause 
and laughter.) 

In view of what has transpired since, in 
view of what is in progress at this very 
hour in South Africa, do you believe that 
the judgement I then expressed is un- 
founded or harsh? (A voice: "N"o".) I 
do not. But, as I said, I did not come 
here to occupy much time; neither did 
I come to denounce England any further. 
It is my deliberate judgement, Mr. Chair- 
man, that England to-day is more to be 
pitied than desecrated. It is a terrible 
statement, but I honestly believe that it 
is a true one. In making that statement, 
however. I do not wish to be misunder- 
stood; I do not include the English peo- 
ple. No one respects the English people as 
such more highly than I do. And I imag- 



17 

ine that that is the feeling and that those 
are the sentiments of every individual in 
this audience. (Applause.) But when I 
use the language quoted I use it of and 
concerning the Tory element, the Tory re- 
gime, the Tory government, which, when- 
ever it has been in control, has made the 
English government not only a curse to 
its own people but to every nation in the 
world with which it has come in contact. 
(Applause.) Yes, I say England is to be 
pitied. By reason of the steady and per- 
sistent pursuit of a grasping, greedy, un- 
conscioniabl.e commercialism she has t^e- 
come, as a natural and necessary result, 
the nation that she is; a nation of pau- 
pers and millionaires. (A voice: That's 
right.) Why this building would hold all 
the farm, owners in great England. (A 
voice: Just about.) You can count the 
owners of her lands by hundreds, and her 
tenants only by tens and tens and tens 
of millions. To-day she is not only de- 
nounced by right-tlimking people for her 
present acts, but she is despisecl as a mili- 
tary power — which has been her pride in 
the past. (Applause.) She has absolute- 
ly lost her prestige among the nations of 
the world.. Her own papers, her own 
press 

A voice: Pioneer Press. (Laughter.) 

Governor Lind: I don't know whether 
Cecil Rhodes has seen the Pioneer Press 
or not. ' (Laughter.) Her own press, I 
say, is discussing seriouslv the question 
whether national decadence has tmaiiy 
struck England. I thmk Englishmen 
may well seriously consider that question, 
when you take into consideration their 
economic and social conditions ; and furth- 
er when you take into consideration that 
in a country almost as populous as ours — 
that is, relatively, (two-thirds, I believe, 
of the population that we have), after she 



18 

had raised a paltry thirty or forty thous- 
and soldiers beyond her regular available 
standing army, she found it almost impos- 
sible to raise any more. Counties in Eng- 
land in order to procure the quota that 
the government requires, are compelled 
to put up bounties of from thirty to tifty 
thousand pounds to the county. I don't 
know how much they pay per capita, but 
I presume that they pay a large sum per 
capita for volunteers, wheras in our case, 
when the president called for troops — 

A voice: He always got them. 

Governor Lind; Yes. They were not 
only granted, but ten times as many as 
were wanted were tendered. (Applause.) 

But I am taking up too much time. We 
did not come here to discuss England so 
much as to express our heartfelt, sincere 
and earnest sympathy for the noble, pa- 
triotic, self-sacrificing liberty-loving, 
men and women of the Tra-nsvaal and the 
Orange Fre-3 State. (Applause.) No peo- 
ple in this wovhl, my frienvls, have been 
so malignantly, so persistently^ eo con- 
tinuously elandeied and libclsd, as thoso 
people durinjr the last six to eiffnt /ears: 
in fact ever sine2 Cecil Rhode* concluded 
that he wanted to trwn the erttmlry as 
well as th« qoll idnes and the diamond 
fields. It is the most revolting, the most 
monstrous crime of the century, when the 
printing presses of two continents for val- 
ue received have been set to work (Ap- 
plause.) to denounce, malign and abuse 
a people. (Great Applause.) 

That is the purpose of this meeting, 
and in that purpose we all heartily join. 

And again T want to say that I trust 
nothing will be said or done on this oc- 
casion by myself or by anyone else, that 
will have a tendency to stir up any feel- 
ing, any bitterness or any strife against 
the English people, or any prejudice 
against the English people as such 



19 

They are as blameless of this as you and 
I. The men to whom tne preced- 
ing speaker so eloquently referr- 
ed are the responsible ones. vVhen 
they had inaugurated the crime, they 
waved the flag and appealed to an arous- 
ed patriotism, to the pride of the people, 
and said the flag had been insulted. The 
people, in their patriotic fervor to stand 
by the flag, rushed, as they thought, to 
its rescue, — just the same as they rush- 

' ed to the rescue of the flag to force opi- 
um upon the Chinese. The people are not 
to blame. The politicians are the guilty 
ones. 

j I think perhaps there is one other mat- 
ter tbat we ought to take cognizance of 
on this occasion. Perhaps it is premat- 

I ure, but we ought to give it some thought. 

I For the first time in the history of our 

I country it has been seriously suggested 

j to us that flour, human food, food for the 
babes, for the children, for the women, as 

I well as for those in the field, is contra- 
band of war. (Applause and laughter.) 

1 Yes, my friends, flour is absolutely es- 

' sential for the sustenance of the numer- 
ous English prisoners of the Transvaal! 

I (Laughter.) And still it is seriously sug- 
gested, and apparently seriously enter- 
tained by our government, that that com- 
modity is contraband of war. That is a 
very serious question to us, and that is 
a question that we have a right to discuss 
and that we have a right to express our 
views in regard to and that we have a 

\ right to brace up the back-bone of our 
government upon, if ni^oessary. (Ap- 
plause.) Why, when this nation "was but 
a child, at the time of the Napoleonic 
wars, France suggested the same thing 
to the United States with reference to 
England. We did not accept the sug- 
gestion. On the contrary we collected 
some seven million dollars of damages 



20 

for French interference with our com- 
merce; that indemnity was paid in what 
was known as the French spoliation 
claims, which were allowed as a part of 
the purchase money for the province of 
Louisiana. It is no satisfaction to the 
American merchant to say that the Eng- 
lishmen will take our flour and pay for 
it, which is evidently the way they pro- 
pose to settle it. Our commercial credit, 
our commercial engagements, demand 
that wben an American citizen sells 
flour to a merchant in Delagoa Bay or in 
the Transvaal, that flour shall be deliv- 
ered to the consignee. (Applause.) Upon 
that theory and upon that theory only, 
can we build up and maintain a com- 
merce. And I say, if it should transpire 
that our government needs a little brac- 
ing to come to that decision, and to en- 
force that view, then I think that it is 
incumbent upon us to give them that en- 
couragement. I thank you. (Great Ap- 
plause.) 



The Chairman then introduced Hon. A. 
R. Kiefer, Mayor of St. Paul, who spoke 
as follows: 

ADDRESS BY HON. A. R. KIEFER. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

While sitting here listening t-^ the high- 
minded words as spoken by gentlemen 
who love liberty and freedom, the thought 
came to me; --How encouraging it would 
be for Oom Paul could he look at such a 
gathering as this in favor of his cause. 
(Applause). 

I did not come here this evening with 
any intention of making a lengthy ad- 
dress. I came as a citzien to listen to 
what the friends oi a brave little nation 
in far off Africa have to say as to tlieir 
recent struggles for freedom and liberty 
against one of the leading nations of the 
earth. 



21 

I presume, Mr. Chairman, this immense 
gathering is caused by a desire to express 
hearty sympathy for the cause of liberty 
and freedom; sympathy for the love of 
Republicanism and self-government as 
championed by that little nation known 
as the Boer ftepublic, in South Africa; 
brave and noble people who ha^^^ left their 
native land far across the sea to settle in 
the wilds of South Africa, there to build 
up a new home with a view to bettering 
their conditions; to plant their fig tr3e, 
till their soil and raise their grain and 
thank God for the plentiful returns of 
their labor; to live in peace and harmony^ 
and serve their God according to their 
own hearts' dictation. They were a hap- 
py, christian, God-fearing people; and in- 
deed, would have remained so had it not 
been for the greed of others. (Cheers). 

But, Mr. Chairman, the war is on; and, 
rightfully, the one whom we think to be 
in the right, is entitled to our sympathy 
in this struggle. Entitled not only to our 
sympathy, but the sick and wounded 
should receive care at our hands. The 
Rer Cross organization, which has of late 
smoothed the pillows of so many suilering 
patriots, should be again encouraged to 
extend its humane work across the seas 
to the fields of the contending forces in 
South Africa. (Applause). 

A people who are ready to sacrifice all 
to retain their freedom and liberty ;,: "ee- 
dom to retain a government as by them 
formed upon the basis of the American 
Republic, a government of their - eo;-^e, by 
their people and for their people, is thrice 
entitled to the sympathy, admiration and 
assistance of all liberty-loving humanity, 
(Great Applause). 

The Chairman: I now have the pleas^ 
ure of introducing Health Commissioner 
Ohage, who will address you. (Applause.) 



22 

ADDRESS BY DR. JUSTUS OHAGE. 

The purpose of our meeting to-night, 
Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen, 
is not only to express our sympathy to 
that little band of heroes far off in Africa 
who are fighting a forlorn hope against 
an empire, heretofore considered the 
mightiest one of the world, but also as 
an object lesson to those in whose hands 
lays the political destiny of the American 
people; that they may understand the 
sentiments of the people and shape their 
policy according to their wishes and de- 
mands. 

It is the old story over again, when 
man destroys man against whom he has 
no ill-will. The Outlanders had no com- 
plaints which could not have been recti- 
fied "by their leaving. People who do not 
like to live under the laws of the United 
States need not stay here — the world is 
large and there are other places for t'hem. 
(i^aughter and Applause.) 

But if the oppression and injustice to 
the Outlanders were as great as reported— 
and by the way all the reports we have 
come through the English channels, 
through London, then why is it that all 
the Outlanders, the Americans, the Dutch, 
the Germans, the Irish, the French, the 
Scandinavians, and quite a number of 
English even, are fighting shoulder to 
shoulder with the Boers? (Applause.) 

You are told England is fighting for 
humanity and civilization. These words 
in tlie mouth of English statemen are 
blasphemy and cant. (Applause.) It was 
English humanity which stood silently 
by when their Indian allies butchered our 
colonial troops, it was English humanity 
which tied the Sepoy leaders to the muz- 
zles of the cannon and blew them to pieces, 
and it was English humanity which rules 
Ireland today without mercy, without 
jaastice, and denies her the same privileges 



23 

which she demands of the Transvaal. 
(Applause.) 

iPouse tells us that 2000 years 
ago Julius Caesar made w^r 
upon a small German tribe, slew them all 
and took their country. The sweeping 
off the earth in such manner, of a quarter 
of a million of human beings, even in 
those unscrupulous times, could not be 
heard without a shudder, and Cato called 
Caesar to account in the Roman senate. 
Cato died. The Roman Empire crumbled 
to pieces, and history tells us of her giory 
and of her shame. 

The peace conference had barely ended 
at the Hague. A conference for the purpose 
of mitigating the horrors of war, if wars 
could not be prevented by arbitration. 
Lyddite shells and dumdum bullets were 
denounced by all nations represented, ex- 
cept by human England, and I am ashamed 
to say it, her trabant, the United States. 
English humanity makes use of both in 
her African war, and English humanity 
slaughters defenseless Boer prisoners and 
boasts of it, or holds them like criminals 
on her prison ships. English humanity 
stands to-day where Roman humanity 
stood 2000 years ago. (Applause.) 

While it is true that England has ad? 
vanced civilization, it has only been to her 
financial profit, and her contracts have 
been written with blood and tears. She 
has most liberally civilized small, weak 
people — on the style of the tiger and the 
lamb, with the lamb on the inside. 
(Laugh ter.) 

Her professed cause for war is for what 
she to-day denies to thousands of her own 
subjects at home, the right to vote, the 
true cause for her war is the greed of 
gold. Under the mask of friendship, 
through a press bought by British gold, 
disgustingly courting an alliance or syr 
pathy from her dear American cousins. 



24 

by deceit and cotery she tries to draw us 
to her, and into her entanglements with 
other nations. She stood by us when we 
were fighting a seventh rate power and 
protected us when nobody wanted to do 
lis harm. Next to a coward, the 
most disgusting thinor is a brag- 
bnaggart. Had not the loud-mouthed 
press of England bragged and boasted so 
tnuch of what all they were going to do, 
her defeats would not have been so humil- 
iating, so shamefully disgracing. 

Those whom the srods wish to destroy 
they first strike with madness. England 
by her arrogant and insulting treatment 
of others, has come to a condition of com- 
plete isolation, a bully among the nations. 
8he has not a true friend upon the face 
of the earth — except perhaps Washington. 
D. C. and Washington, D. C. is not the 
American people. (Great laughter and 
applause.) The people against whom she 
IS now carrying on a war to the death, are 
the descendants of noble races. Their 
forefathers vanoufshed the armies of Phil- 
ip of Spain, and more than once have they 
met the Eng-lish snccessfullv in battle. 
A small, heroic band, those Boers of the 
African republics! In mimber not more 
+>ian the population of th<> Twin Cities. 
They enter noon this war Vi+hout a boast, 
but with determination. No heralding 
of comino" events — simplv trust in the 
God of their fathers. Brave in battle, 
niercifiil to the smitten. Quick in action, 
respectful to the vanquished. No vae 
V i c t i s of the Bomans. but tenderness 
to the Avonnde^. They are fig-htin^ for 
their all. their libertv and their homes, 
Spartans in every sense of the word. 

A voice : That's right. 

These, lad-es and gentlemen, are the 

people that England wants to civilize. 

(Laughter and apnlanse."^ History ever 

,fina ever repeats itself. A period of de- 



25 

bauchery, lust, unrighteousness and moral 
decay always precedes the downfall of a 
nation. The corrupt patricians of Nero 
and all of their legions, fell before the un- 
corrupt Teutons, and the power and ty- 
ranny of Rome vanished. Nations have 
since risen and fallen, corruption of the 
masses always preceding their fall. Cor- 
ruption of the rulers of the nations will 
drag their people along to destruction and 
infamy, unless aroused from their lethar- 
gy by self-sacrificing, patriotic opposition. 
Home had her Cato. England had her 
Grand Old Man, Gladstone (Great Ap- 
plause), but their advice was not heeded; 
they were cried down by a noisy, irrespon- 
sible minority. The best Romans were 
not those who followed Xero, but those 
who opposed him. The best Englishmen 
oppose this war, but they are in it, ac- 
cording to "destiny". England is to-day 
in the power of an unscrupulous, corrupt 
cabinet, which created this unholy war 
for greed and aggrandizement alone. A 
few men have set two noble races to war 
who have no grudge against one another. 
A few political mountebanks, arrogant 
and corrupt, not representing but usurp- 
ing the English people, are responsible for 
a condition of things which staggers hu- 
manity. 

Let us pray for the victory for that lit- 
tle band of Boers, where every man, wom- 
an or child, is a hero; let them know that 
the eyes of the world are on them and 
that every noble heart beats with them 
in sympathy, and let us wish that the de- 
feat of England be for her better, for her 
emancipation from corrupt political and 
journalistic jingoism, and that she may 
remain in the family of nations, wiser and 
better than ever. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is, I think, 
the sentiment of most all the Germans 
and their descendants among you* 



It is not hatred against the English 
people, whose good qualities we appreci- 
ate, but it is a deep, a just hatred against 
their jingo government and subsidized 
press, which has heaped insult after insult 
upon us, which by the meanest efforts 
persistently tries to cause a feeling of un- 
friendliness between our new and our old 
fatherland, which has caused some of the 
American people to forget a friendship 
which has lasted more than a century, 
made them forget that German blood was 
mixed with American blood on every bat- 
tlefield under the stars and stripes. (Ap- 
plause.) 

We Germans are as loyal as the best, 
but while we love our new fatherland, we 
still have an affectionate spot in our heart 
for the old, and an insult to either we are 
Bure to resent. But above all, the right- 
eousness of the Boer cause, our admira- 
tion of their manly virtues, our love of 
liberty and freedom, makes us sympathize 
with them from the bottom of our hearts. 
And may the gods of war be with them! 
(Applause.) 

The Chairman: Ladies and Gentlemen: 
It was thought proper as a part of the 
program of this evening there should be 
a brief detailed statement of the history 
of this cause. That will now be presented 
to you by our fellow-townsman, Mr. T. 
R. Kane. 

Mr. Kane was received with great ap- 
plause. 

ADDRESS BY MR. T. R. KANE. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: The world is 
witnessing at the present hour the sad- 
dest and most gloomy spectacle that has 
marred the history of centuries. Two na- 
tions, peopled by a race that in all the 
no*blest attributes of man are as noble as 



ever lived in the tide of time, have been 
forced through self-defence into all the 
horrors of modern warfare, and they have 
been forced there by an invader that 
seeks to place the standard of brute force 
upon a higher plane than the banner of 
impartial justice and the sacred obliga- 
tions of international treaty and conven- 
tion. (Applause.) The edict has gone forth 
from that nation whose processes of civili- 
zation have been written in characters 
of cardinal hue from Omdurman to the 
famine-stricken districts of India, that the 
presence of a free republic in South Afri- 
ka is a menace to the domination of Eng- 
land in the Dark Continent, and that 
therefore two independent states, carved 
by the intelligence and the courage and 
the patriotismoftheirsonsoutof the most 
adverse circumstances that were ever im- 
pressed upon the children of men, — 
shall sink their aspirations for lib- 
erty and for independence under the iron 
heel of the invader and live no more ex- 
cept upon the fading pages of history. 
(Applause.) 

And what adds to the sad and gloomy 
character of the spectacle is that a Chris- 
tian civilization in every nation, empire, 
republic and monarchy upon the face of 
the earth stands idly by and, with folded 
arms, looks like a spectator upon this hor- 
rible spectacle without crying protest to 
the world's blind greed. (Applause.) 

The claim has been made by England 
that she has untertaken this war through 
the stimulus of philanthropic and hum- 
anitarian motives; first, to open up the 
internal portions of the great continent 
of Africa to the progress of modern civili- 
zation and development; secondly, to 
grant to a portion of the citizens of the 
Transvaal the inestimable privilege of the 
elective franchise. 

The Boer Eepublics claim that this war 



28 

is the culmination of a long and fixed 
determination upon tne part of the Eng- 
lish government not only to stamp out 
once and forever every vestige of Repub- 
lican institutions in Africa, but to secure 
possession and control and ownership of 
the fabulously rich and inexhaustible 
gold mines of the Vvitvvatersrand at Jo- 
hannesburg. ( Applause ) . 

Long before this issue was joined upon 
the field of battle England has sought to 
prepare her case for the tribunal of pub- 
lic opinion. By a carefully devised and 
elaborate scheme of systematic falsifica- 
tion in reference to the characteristics and 
the progressiveness of the Boer races, she 
sought to inculcate throughout the ci\^*- 
ized world the belief that a portion of 
South Africa was in the possession of a 
race that constituted not only an imper- 
vious barrier to the introduction of any 
further civilization, but that they were a 
constant menace and a threatening aanger 
to the civilization that already existed 
there. After the war was opened this 
case was presented to the world at L.rge 
by every suggestion that skilful diplom- 
acy could suggest and by every means 
and methods that a perverted journalism 
could execute. Through the multitudi- 
nous tongues of the associated press, as 
well as through every other means that 
the capital and the power of England con- 
trolled, this case was presented to the 
public at large; while the Transvaal, 
with the impassable sands of Africa on 
one side and the cordon of British ships 
on the other, had to state her case to the 
world through the British censorship of 
Durban or Cape Colony or remain silent 
as to tne justice of her cause. (Applause.) 
England, however, for once reckoned 
without her host. She had overlooked 
the fact that truth and international jus- 
tice could not be smothered in the sands 
of Central Africa even when surrounded 



29 

by the embattled bayonets of the British 
power. (Applause.) She had forg^otten 
tiiat the Boer races had lived and acted 
imperishable history before she had estab- 
lished her censorship at Durban. (Ap- 
plause.) She has yet to learn that the 
st.ry of this tragic struggle will be writ- 
ten in letters of gold upon the brightest 
pages of human history long after the 
British censorship has faded from South 
Africa. (Applause.) 

Now, in the brief space of time allotted 
to me I shall endeavor to prove to that 
portion of the American people represent- 
ed by this magnificent audience not only 
that the claims of the Boer Republics as 
to the causes leading up to that war were 
true in spirit as well as in fact, but I will 
go further than that and I will prove out 
of the mouth of Joseph Chamberlain him- 
self, in his admissions before the English 
parliament, that the war in which Eng- 
land is now engaged can in no way be 
fitly characterized than as a war of 
national immorality. (Applause.) 

More than 250 years have passed since 
the ancestors of the Dutch Republics set- 
tled in South Africa. They sprang from 
the Holland immigrants and the French 
Huguenots that were placed there in 1652 
by the Dutch East India Company; and 
I will beg my audience to be a little leni- 
ent with me while I go over dry histori- 
cal facts, because I will be as brief as 
possible, and I feel that this audience here 
tonight, or a great portion of them, desire 
to hear the historical truth of the Boer 
side of this question. (Applause.) 

After the landing of the immigrants on 
the Southern portion of Cape Colony, in 
the control of the Dutch East India Com- 
pany, a portion of those inhabitants re- 
mained on the coast. They were the 
merchant princes of that hour, dealing in 
the vast trade between India and Europe. 



30 

Another portion of them strayed into the 
interior of Africa and became the fron- 
tiersmen of that continent. Those who 
went into the interior left the touch of 
civilization and the outside world, but 
what they lost in the effete manners and 
the luxurious customs of a growing civil- 
ization they made up in vigor of manly 
independence and love of liberty. (Ap- 
plause.) During all the period of their 
existence there and in their constant fight 
with hostile tribes, with the adverse cir- 
cumstances that surrounded them in that 
land of plagues and calamities, they at 
various times gave evidence of that in- 
trepidity and that courage that has later 
been exhibited upon wider fields of action. 
Now, it must be remembered that aside 
from the fringe of piratical states in the 
northern part of Africa and perhaps the 
Valley of the Nile, that continent is one 
vast, trackless desert and arid plain. A 
territory of three thousand miles long and 
two thousand miles broad lies burning 
and baking under the unrelenting rays 
of a tropic sun from year to year, only 
visited occasionally by swarms of locust, 
with hot winds and storms of sand that 
are fatal alike to man and beast. Over 
this territory there roam with ceaseless 
activity and promiscuity roaming bands 
of Basutos and Hottentots and Zulus and 
Kaffirs, engaged in the eternal struggle 
of predatory warfare with the only end 
and aim of robbery and total extinction. 
It seems, indeed, as if the providential 
curse had fallen upon this unhappy land 
with direst effect. So true is this, that 
the nations of the world for untold cen- 
turies have allowed this continent to re- 
main a sealed book to civilization. The 
nations of the world knew that the profits 
and the emoluments that all the genius 
and all the industryof men could wrin^ 
from the arid plain of Central Africa 



31 

would never pay for the ordeals and the 
trials and the dangers of exploring and 
subjugating it. And indeed it may be 
said that until a comparatively late peri- 
od in the world's history the nations of 
the world had by tacit consent agreed 
that this "dark continent" was intended 
by Providence as the eternal and unchang- 
ing resting-place of the unfortunate des- 
cendants of Noah's undutiful son. And 
this description of Central Africa is sup- 
ported by the authority of the most emi- 
nent explorers and geographical writers 
oi the age. And I make this explanation 
in answer to the claim made by England 
that one of her philanthropic purposes in 
carrying on this war is to open up that 
arid clime to progress and to civilization! 
(Applause.) She can hardly expect lo in- 
troduce a better civilization there than 
she has in the fertile vales of India, where 
her citizens by the millions today are 
starving and crying in anguish, from 
Lucknow to Brahmaputra and from 
their to Calcutta. 

Now over the many difficulties and ob- 
stacles that I have described in that con- 
tinent, the intrepid courage ,the industry, 
the strict frugality of the Boer races to a 
certain extent triumphed. And it may 
be said in relation to those races that the 
children of the Boers, of the Dutch inhab- 
itants of Cape Colony, are the only people 
of the Caucasian race that have ever been 
enabled to maintain themselves in the 
hinterland of Centre. t Africa. (Applause). 
For a period of 150 years after landing 
at Cape Colony they lived in peace and 
contentment until through the fortunes of 
war, in 1806 Cape Colony was transferred 
to British ownership; and with it it 
brought all the degradation and all wne 
shame and all the humiliation ^^.^y. a 
proud spirit feels when he is transferred 
like a chattel from one master to the 



32 

other. The Dutch inhabitants of South 
Africa refused to accept the conditions 
imposed upon them by their new task- 
masters. Year after year of dissension 
passed by. No protection was given to 
the Boer from the rage of border tribes. 
His language was changed; his courts 
were changed; he had no schools; and m 
1836, after taking the opinion of the most 
eminent legal jurists in Europe and in 
England as to their right to expatriate 
themselves from English territory, there 
commenced the greatest migration that 
has ever been recorded in history and has 
been referred to as the Boer "trelE" of 
1836. At that time over ten thousand 
men with their families, in one body, ex- 
patriated themselves from the territorial 
limits of British possessions, and going 
forth into the wilds of South-eastern 
Africa to make new homes in a new coun- 
try, they spread out over the territory 
that now constitutes the Orange Free 
State. (Applause.) 

Shortly after taking possession of the 
Orange Free State, in order to destroy a 
powerful native chieftain, who made a 
living by assassination and public robbery 
of the Boers, they descended upon the 
territory of Natal, and after a war with 
Dirgan the great chieftain of that place, 
they destroyed his tribe and took posses- 
sion of Natal and established in South 
Africa its first republic — the Republic of 
Natalia. 

So long as the Boer races continued to 
fight and to be decimated by the hostility 
of internal tribes and hordes, England 
looked upon her expatriated citizens with 
indifference and contempt and careless- 
ness. But the moment tnat the Republic 
of Natalia was established upon the sea- 
coast, with a flag of independence star- 
ing England in the face, without cause 
or provocation that has ever been assign- 
ed in history, she sent her fleet and her 



33 

troops and, after a battle with the Boers, 
again conquered them and proclaimed 
her sovereignty over all the territory of 
the Orange Free State. (Applause.) 

Xow our immigrants who had been chas- 
ed from their homes once, who had gone 
into the wilds of a new country in order 
to obtain their liberty at the expense of 
the dangers of that migration, were re- 
duced to the alternative of doing either 
one thing or the other: either accepting 
again the yoke of the conquerer, or taking 
up the burdens of life anew and exploring 
some other portion of Central Africa. 
But the intrepid spirit that, as my friends 
here have said, held at bay for twenty 
years the power of Spain and Europe be- 
hind the dikes of Holland, triumphed ov- 
er the life of ease and the Boer again tak- 
ing up the burden of his song, leaves the 
Orange Free State and transports him- 
self by a second "trek" across the Vaal 
Kiver into the territory now known as 
the Transvaal. (Applause.) 

The Boer was now driven to the in- 
ternal portions of Africa, and he still car- 
ried with him his eternal dislike and con- 
tempt for what he considered British or 
English duplicity and wrong. For a 
period of three or four or more years ae 
continued to have trouble with the inter- 
ior and with the coast authorities; and at 
that time — whetiier it was because the 
territory he occupied was considered 
worthless or that in course of time his 
race would be decimated by the hostile 
tribes — ^we will grant it was prompted by 
a just motive — England performed the 
first act of justice that had characterized 
her conduct towards the Dutch colonists 
since they came into her possession. In 
1852, at the Sand River Convention, the 
Transvaal Republic's independence was 
recognized, not only by England but by 
all the first-class nations of Europe; and 



3* 

the Secretary of State of the United 
States of America sent a letter of congrat- 
ulation to the president of the Transvaal 
Republic. (Applause.) 

Now the Boer had secured what he had 
long contended for so well. He was en- 
titled as an independent nation to sit at 
the council table of nations as an inde- 
pendent state, but his heritage was a bar- 
ren one. In the isolation of his inland po- 
sition, without an outlet of his own to the 
sea, and being then (as to-day) dependent 
upon the outside world for almost every 
article that goes into the consumption of 
life and the necessaries of life, he had to 
import what was necessary to live upon 
through the maritime ports of Great Brit- 
ain — ^through New London, Port Eliza- 
beth, Durban, and Cape Town; and the 
duties, the ad valorem duties, the postal 
duties, the trade tariffs that were levied 
upon every article that entered into the 
Transvaal or the Orange Free State made 
it a burden intolerable and unendurable 
to the Boer. (Applause.) 

For a period of twenty-five years this 
condition lasted, until the year 1877. 
During all that time the merchant princes 
of the maritime ports became rich and 
opulent, and during all that time the poor 
farmer on the African veldt became poor- 
er and poorer. 

At that time two historical incidents 
occurred that exhibit in a remarkable and 
emphatic degree the disregard which Eng- 
land has for the sacred character of 
treaty obligations in dealing with a na- 
tion unable to protect its rights and its 
interests. (Applause.) At that time 
there was discovered in what is known as 
Griqualand West, a portion of the Orange 
Free State, the magnificent diamond 
minesj upon which Kimberly stands today. 
Immediately upon that discovery England 
claimed it by territorial right. TheOr- 



35 

ange Free State considered that it was 
hers, as well as the capital in which her 
Volksraad met, but in order to escape 
destruction by a contest with such a su- 
perior power, the Orange Free State had 
to cede those diamond mines to England 
for the paltry compensation of ninety 
thousand pounds. And if there is an 
English sympathizer here that tells me 
that was a disputed territory as a histor- 
ical fact I say you are mistaken. If tLat 
territory was England's territory and she 
kiiew it, she would not have paid the 
Orange Free State ninety thousand pounds 
for it (applause) ; and if it was not her 
territory it was not honorable or just or 
right that she shouid compel the infant 
republic to cede it to her for that inade- 
quate price. (Applause.) Now, the dia- 
mond mines from that day to this — al- 
most thirty years — ^have brought to Eng- 
lish capitalists and to English pockets an 
annual revenue of thirty millions of dol- 
lars. 

But there is another. At this time the 
Transvaal State had arrived, by the ex- 
tortionate charges upon everything that 
was introduced into the colony, at the 
verge of financial desperation. She de- 
cided at that time to redeem herself from 
that intolerable conu^cion by building a 
railroad from Pretoria, her capital, to 
Lorenzo Marquez or Delogoa Bay, as a 
shorter route to the seaboard and a route 
over which she would have fairer treat- 
ment in the importation of what was 
necessary for both republics. Immediate- 
ly upon the commencement of that enter- 
prise Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the repre- 
sentative of England, appeared in the 
Transvaal, and with no provocation, with 
no reason that has been given in history 
to the present day except the poverty and 
weakness of the victim, he proclaimed 
again the Transvaal a portion of her ma- 



m 

jesty's dominion and an English colony. 
(Applause.) This act was accompanied 
by the hypocrital cant of humanitarian 
motives that always characterizes her 
transactions. The reason she gave to the 
world for claiming the Transvaal as a por- 
tion of her territory in 1877 was that the 
impoverished condition in which the 
Transvaal then stood made it a lasting 
temptation to the tribes of interior Africa 
to swoop down upon her, and that Eng- 
land put out her wing and gathered her 
in to protect her. (Laughter and Ap- 
plause.) The old story of the owl gath- 
ering in the chicken to protect it from 
the hawk! (Laughter.) The same thing. 
The real cause of this a ct of internation- 
al vandalism was England's desire to pre- 
vent the construction of the Delagoa Bay 
Railroad and preserve to her ports in 
Cape Colony an absolute monopoly of 
the growing trade of the Young Republics. 
Now, the Transvaal citizens petitioned. 
They wanted the restoration of their in- 
dependence. Independence would not 
be given to them. The long, pa- 

tient, persevering spirit of the Boer 
at last ceased to be patient, and 
with one accord the population of the 
Transvaal sprang to arms in defence of 
the liberty and the independence of their 
country, and on the historic field of Ma- 
juba Hill they forced England to leave. 
(Tremendous applause and cheers.) Upon 
that field they forced England to recog- 
nize the fact that it is possible for a peo- 
ple to be poor and proud and still inde- 
pendent. (Applause.) Happily for the 
spirit of liberty and for humanity the 
destiny of England at that time was pre- 
sided over by the greatest statesman that 
had existed since the days of Edmund 
Burk, and that was William E. Gladstone. 
(Great Applause.) Under his influence 
a treaty of peace was signed in 1881 res- 



37 

toring to the Transvaal her independence. 
But in that treaty, both in the preamble 
anu in the body of the treaty, there was 
what was known as the rights of suzer- 
ainity reserved to her majesty the queen. 
(Laughter.) That treaty of 1881 was 
never affirmed by the Volksraad or by the 
Transvaal Republic. But in 1883 a com- 
mission was sent from Pretoria to -Lon- 
don and, if I am not mistaken, the pres- 
ent president of the Transvaal Republic 
and General Joubert were parties to that 
commission that went to London. (A 
voice: That's right.) They brought with 
them a new treaty that was to be sub- 
stituted for the treaty of 1881, and in 
that treaty they desired that the clause 
reserving suzeraipity to her majesty should 
be stricken out. When they went to 
England and when the convention met it 
was the hand of the English commissioner, 
Lord Derby, that struck out from the con- 
vention or treaty of 1884 all claims in ref- 
erence to suzerainity, and the commission- 
ers of the Transvaal returned to their 
native home, happy in the possession of 
independence, again among the family 
of nations, with — and I emphasize these 
terms — with absolute, unqualified, unlim- 
ited and complete control over all of their 
internal affairs.. (Applause.) 

Now we come to a more interesting 
period. Now we come to tne considera- 
tion of one of the arch-conspirators in this 
magnificent drama of national annihila- 
tion, as it were. Now is the time we 
call upon Joseph Chamberlain (hisses in 
the back part of the building,) the secre- 
tary of the colonies, to stand forth and 
answer the questions of an aroused public 
opinion. Recognizing Mr . Chamberlain- 
recognizing tne sacred character of the 
treaty of 1884, bj what right did you de- 
mand to interfere in the internal manage- 



ment of the Transvaal? By what au- 
thority did you or the nation that you 
represent seek to enforce your demands 
by violence and by force? What canon of 
international morality? What barrier 
to the advancement of a Christian civ- 
ilization had these races of the two inde- 
pendent republics made that the self- 
constituted champion of a growing civili- 
zation or an advanced civilization such 
as England, should cast aside the sacred 
treaty rights of 1884 and destroy the re- ■ 
publics if their demands were not grant- " 
ed? 

But I will go further with Mr. Cham- 
berlain. Conceding that you had a right 
to make the demands, what demands 
have you made from these republics that 
have not been granted? You asked for 
a diminishment of the term of the elective 
franchise, and it was granted — first from 
fourteen to seven years, and next from 
seven years to five. You asked that an 
arbitration committee be appointed to 
settle the difficulties between your coun- 
try and the Transvaal, and it was conced- 
ed. You asked that English be spoken in 
the public schools, and it was conceded. 
You asked that English be spoken in the 
Volksraad, and it was conceded. You 
asked that the method of choosing their 
judiciary be changed from an appointive 
to an elective one, and it was conceded. 
And then when your diplomacy had be- 
come exhausted in fabricating new de- 
mands, the aged president of the Republic 
in an anxiety to save his people, said in 
the most pathetic accents that were ever 
uttered by the lips of man, "You can 
have all — all — all except independence." 
(Cheers and applause.) When this state- 
ment was made by the President of the 
Transvaal what answer was returned by 
humanitarian England? The answer, 
too churlish and insolent to find a place 



i 



39 

even in English diplomatic correspond- 
ence, that was hurled back at that Re- 
public was, "You are not an indeppndent 
state, but a vassal, and a rebellious vas- 
sal, of her majesty tie queen." (Mingled 
hisses and applause.) 

Now I want to say that Mr .Chamber- 
i?An had no right to make any ^demands. 
I stated in opening this case that I would 
prove by Mr. Chamberlain's own admis- 
sions before parliament that he had no 
right, Hrud I shall proceed to do so. (Re- 
ferring to papers on the table.) 

In 1896, after what is known as the 
Jameson raid (hisses), the following state- 
ment was made by the Secretary of the 
colonies in the English parliament. Cer- 
tain demands had been made upon the 
president of the Transvaal Republic, 
which he had refused, and Mr. Chamber- 
lain speaking on the subject says as fol- 
lows : . 

"I do not say that under the terms of 
the convention (and that was the con- 
vention or treaty of 1884; no other con- 
vention existed at that time) — "I do not 
say that under the terms of tne conven- 
tion we are entitled to force reforms on 
President Kruger, but we are entitled to 
give him friendly counsel. If this friend- 
ly counsel is not well received, there was 
not the slightest intention on the part 
of her majesty's government to press it. 
I am perfectly willing to withdraw it and 
to seek a different solution if it should 
not prove acceptable to the president." 
Now watch this: "The righteousness of 
our action under the convention was lim- 
ited to the offering of friendly counsel, 
in the rejection of which, if it is not ac- 
cepted, we must be quite willing to ac- 
quiesce." (Laughter.) 

That was the opinion of Mr. Chamber- 
lain in 1896 before he had his last closet- 
ing experience with the Warren Hastings 



40 

of South Africa — ^Mr. Cecil Rhodes. (Ap- 
plause.) 

Further, I want to read another state- 
ment from Mr. Chamberlain before the 
English parliament: **In some quarters 
the idea is put forward that the govern- 
ment ought to have issued an ultimatum 
to President Kruger-an ultimatum which 
would certainly have been rejected and 
which must have led to war. Sir, I do - 
not propose to discuss such a contingency I 
as that. A war in South Africa would f 
be one of the most serious wars that could 
be possibly waged." He has learned since 
that it is. (Great Applause.) "It would 
be in the nature of a civil war; it would 
be a long war, a costly war, a bitter war. 
To go to war with President Kruger Jn 
order to force upon him reforms in the 
internal affairs of the State, in wnich 
secretaries of state standing in this place 
have repudiated all right of interierence 
on our part, that would be a course of 
action as immoral as it would be un- 
wise." (Applause.) 

If in 1896, when the Transvaal and the 
Transvaal president, had refused to con- 
cede any of the demands of Great Brit- 
ain, — if at that time it would have been 
immoral to force a war upon them, what 
is it to-day to force a war upon him when 
he has conceded every demand that was 
made ? (Applause. ) 

I say, fellow citizens,-and I repeat the 
statement of the gentleman before me,- 
that I am not making a direct charge up^ 
on the individual character of an English- 
man, but the policy that his nation pur- 
sues; than an intelligent world cannot be 
deceived by this hypocritical, magic-lan- 
tern show of Mr. Chamberlain as to the 
causes of this war. We will tear aside 
the pictures on the wall and behind that 
you will see around the round-table of 
British knighthood Cecil Rhodes sitting 



41 

at the head, Chamberlain at the foot, and 
around it the grinning profligate aristocra- 
cy who sold the prestige of their polluted 
titles for ten thousand pounds apiece to 
Ernest Hooley in his dishonest, embezz- 
ling transactions in London. (Laughter 
and applause.) 

"Ah but," said Mr. Chamberlain, "be- 
hind all this and above the sacred terms 
of treaty rights there is the English love 
for an advancing civilization." (Laughter) 
Yes! A race of people who lived in Afri- 
ca 250 years, who opened up and devel- 
oped and made Cape Colony what it is 
to-day; who opened up the Orange Free 
State and made it what it is to-day; 
who opened up the Transvaal and made 
it what it is to-day; a people that have 
their. schools and their churches and their 
courts and their soldiers and their states- 
men; a people honest in their home life 
and with their fellowmen; a people faith- 
ful in their home, hospitable to the 
stranger that goes through their land,--! 
say people of that character, loving their 
home as they do and revering their Bible 
and their Bible teachings, are not badly 
in need of the civilization that can be 
brought there by the hosts of Lord Rob- 
erts of Waterford and Kandahar. (Ap- 
plause.) 

N"ow we will come to a further state- 
ment of Mr. Chamberlain. The tune has 
changed now. In 1896 the Transvaal Re- 
public was a free state; and no matter 
what the management of her internal af- 
fairs might have been, England was only 
•entitled, according to his opinion, to offer 
her friendly counsel. Now the English 
nation has handed forth to the world as 
one of the reasons of this war the fact 
that certain citizens of the Transvaal 
were denied the right .of representation 
in the Yolksraad and in other representa- 



42 

tions. Now wait-no matter how skill- 
ful the diplomacy may be, in a long 
drawn out history of negotiation, the 
truth will come out-the truth Will come 
out, — and I want to read this statement 
of Mr. Chamberlain made before the war 
commenced, and let the American people 
as a jury decide whether or not it was 
avariciousness and cupidity that was the 
prime motive of this war or humanitarian 
purposes to open up Central Africa to 
trade and development. This is from the 
speech delivered by Mr. Chamberlain in 
parliament, last October and reported 
in the New York World on the 
liOth : "Great Britain must re- 
main the paramountpower in South 
Africa. I do not mean paramount in the 
German and Portuguese possessions." No, 
they never mean paramount where they 
are brought into connection with a power 
like Germany that can protect her rights, 
(Applause.) I do not mean paramount in 
the German and Portuguese possessions, 
but in the two republics and the British 
colonies." England wanted, before the 
treaty had been broken, to be paramount 
in a republic that was independent before 
the civilized world in all respects as well 
as she was, and yet the Secretary of the 
Colonies for England wanted England to 
be paramount in that republic! Listen! 
"The whole object of the Boers has been 
to oust the Queen from her position as 
suzerain." The Queen was ousted from 
her position as suzerain by the hand ox 
Lord Derby when he struck from the con- 
vention of 1884 the clause containing the 
suzerainty. (Applause.) 

Further— and let the American people, 
the descendants of Washington and of 
Jefferson and of Jackson and of Lincoln, 
ponder upon this statement, and then say 



43 

whether or not the moral sympathy and 
support of this republic goes out to Eng- 
land in her present war: "The Transvaal 
and the Free State have an i d e a 1 which 
is dangerous to Great Britain." (Laughter) 
The Transvaal and the Orange Free State 
have an ideal of republican institutions 
and republics, and the Orange Free State 
is the only nation in the civilized world 
to-day that has copied verbatim for its 
organic law the constitution of the United 
States of America. (Great Applause.) 
And yet that ideal is a menace to Great 
Britain! 

^ Now we have got the key to this situa- 
tion. The mask has been torn off. We 
have shown the history of the Boer race. 
In all their trials and troubles were they 
ever known to be robbers? Were they ever 
known to be revolutionists? Were they 
ever known to be in possession of any 
characteristic that unfitted them for the 
highest plane of civilization? When they 
were driven from Natal, when they 
were driven from the Orange Free State, 
they took up their burden with the si- 
lent taciturnity of a hero who knew the 
futility of making opposition to his perse- 
cutor, aiid they went into the new lands 
with their burdens and their wrongs; and 
this people, the gravest charge against 
whom has been that they love their coun- 
try, their home, their Bible and their lib- 
erty, is to-day being immolated upon the 
unsanctified altar of insatiable British 
greed, and this country — the people of 
this country, of the fair land of Columbia, 
are called up to stand stalk still and 
shout "Bravo" to the performance. (Great 
Applause.) 

I realize, ladies and gentlemen that I 
have consumed more time than I intend- 
ed (Cries: "Go on, go on!"), but my sub- 



ject forces me — (Here the audience broke 
out into tremendous applause and cneers.) 

It must be easy to realize the difficulty 
of compressing into a few moments the 
history of a nation from its birth almost 
to the hour of its death; but I have 
shown you I think sufficient to let you 
know that the people of these republics 
have been abused and villified and libeled 
and slandered in the public press of two 
continents. Now, the ink is hardly dry 
upon that magnificent treaty that was 
the production of the Hague conference, 
and in the ninth clause of that treaty 
there is a provision made for occasions 
like this, in which any nation who is it 
party to that treaty has an absolute right, 
and it becomes its sacred duty, to proffer 
its services of mediation, not only to pre- 
vent war before it commences, but to 
stop war after it has commenced. (Ap- 
plause.) 

in the dying hours of the Nineteenth 
cBxitury a christian civilization is supposed 
to have advanced; and why, I ask, have 
the nations of the world stood aside with- 
out making an offer of mediation here? 
I can understand why European nations 
have not, but I fail to understand why 
the American republic could not hc^ve 
made that honorable and that charitable 
test. I say, fellow citizens, that I will 
not make the charge that it is due to the 
fac; that the commercialism, referred to 
by the distinguished Executive of this 
State, has emasculated the virtues of the 
American people, because I do not believe 
it; nor shall I whisper it at the present 
time; nor shall I whisper, in fear for I 
hope that I may never be able to make 
the charge, that it may be due to the fact 
that perhaps the hands of others are of, 
the color of Macbeths. (Applause.) But 
I say that all the instincts of humanity, 



45 

that all the teachings of Christianity and 
civilisation, call upon the nations of the 
world at this hour to put forth a protect- 
m<f hand to the virtuous patriot of the 
African veldt. The serious charge has 
been made against him that he has denied 
representation to the foreigner within hia 
territory. Now I will devote a few mom- 
ents to more of the charges. One of the 
charges is that the franchise or the right 
to vote is denied to the foreigner in the 
Transvaal. That statement is as easily 
made in the Associated Press reports aa 
any other statements, and it is as false 
as the majority of the other statements. 
(Applause,) It was an impossibility for 
me to bring here this evening the statutes 
and the legal reports of the Transvaal 
Republic, but I depend upon authorita- 
tive reports more than upon those that 
have been seen in the Associated Press, 
and the truth of the matter is that any 
citizen of the Transvaal Republic who is 
willing to forswear allegiance to the land 
of his birth can become a citizen in that 
republic. (Applause.) The matter of fact 
is that the English resident who goes to 
the Transvaal refuses to forswear allegi- 
ance to her majesty. Now, I do not 
make it as a charge against the individual 
Englishman, but I do say that it is with 
the utmost reluctance that they ever 
make a declaration of citizenship in any 
country. (Applause.) There seems to be 
lurking somewhere in the heart of every 
Englishman, no matter how plebian may 
be his condition, the feeling that some- 
where between the present hour and 
William the Conqueror his family had a 
close connection or relationship with a 
duke or an earl, (Laughter) and that if 
he forswore allegiance to the government 
of her majesty it would jeopardize his in- 
heritance of the coronet or the crown. 



46 

Now this is the truth of the matter in the 
Transvaal. The English resident in the 
Transvaal refused to declare allegiance 
to the Transvaal government, and the 
Transvaal government says that "Al- 
though you may work here, make a living 
here "and enjoy the emoluments of your 
labor, you cannot take part in the fran- 
chise because you are not a citizen." And 
there is not one of the forty-four states in 
the American Union that has not a law 
of the same kind. (Applause.) 

The claim has been made that taxation 
is unequal in the Transvaal Republic — 
and it is unequal in the city of St. Paul. 
(Laughter.! Taxation in the Transvaal 
Republic, according to the laws of 1892, 
was made pro rata, according to the a- 
mount of property one owns; and if you 
have twenty thousand dollars worth of 
property and I have ten thousand dollars 
worth of propei-ty, you pay twice as much 
as I do, and that fairness cannot be said 
of many citizens of the American union. 
(Applause.) 

It must be understood that the vast 
population of foreigners in ti^e Transvaal 
are in the gold mines. They are either in 
the employ of or they are a portion of the 
syndicates and trusts that are working 
the inexhaustible mines of Johannesburg 
and elsewhere. Now these men have 
been paid millions and millions of dollars 
of dividends upon their stock. These men 
have made riches out of the Transvaal 
where they left penury and pauperism 
at home; and is it any wonder that if a 
great syndicate and its officers realize 
two millions of dollars of dividends that 
they should be compelled to pay more 
taxes than the farmer on the African 
veldt? (Applause.) 

They have been charged with intoler- 



47 
ance in religion. Well, England has had 
a little history of intolerance (Applause), 
and the New England colonies of our own 
magnificent country had some religious 
intolerance, but it did not prevent those 
colonists from founding the most magnifi- 
cent republic the woria has ever seen, and 
becoming the finest soldiers in defence 
of it that the world has ever known. (Ap- 
plause.) Religious intolerance is a trans- 
formation of the statement that a man is 
strictly religious and believes in his own 
religion in an orthodox way, to the ex- 
clusion of his neighbor's which is a lit- 
tle different. That is what it means, and 
it exists in every republic. And one of 
the blessings of a republic is that there 
is freedom of religion, that there are dif- 
ferent religions, to the end that there may 
be, as it were, a mosaic of opinions that, 
joining together, make a more magnifi- 
cent and sightly monument. (Applause.) 
These are some of the charges thai have 
been made against the Transvaal Republic 
without foundation. 

The sole purpose, the sole object of this 
war, found its origin in the desire of Ce- 
cil Rhodes and the broken speculators 
and adventurers of the Kimberley dia- 
mond mines to get possession of the Trans- 
vaal, and to destroy at once the last ves- 
tige of Republican institutions in that 
continent. (Applause.) The presence here 
tonight of this magnificent audien<je, pre- 
sided over by a gentleman who has been 
an attorney-general of this State, address- 
ed by the distinguished Executive of this 
State and by the honorable Executive of 
this city, and will be ably addressed by 
the distinguished citizens who will speak 
hereafter, — I say that this Audience in 
the capital city of the North Star State 
has a deeply significant meaning it 
should bear the news to Downing Street 



48 

and to London by the wires of tomorrow 
morning that the people of that magnifi- 
cent territory overlooking the Father of 
Waters still have a love for the insfitu- 
tions of Washington and Jefferson and 
Jackson and Lincoln. (Great Applause.) 
That we have a love for republican insti- 
tutions and republics wherever they may 
be established and however they may 
be attacked. I hope that a set of resolu- 
tions will be passed here this evening 
that, reverberating over by the obelisks 
of Egypt and down by the cradle of the 
world in the Red Sea, will carry from the 
children of the land preserved by the vir- 
tues of Washington to the children of 
that republic presided over by Paul 
Kruger a cheering and an encouraging 
word. ( Great Applause). And let us do 
this whatever the result may be. If our 
prayers and our Avishes be answered or 
not; if the torch of liberty and republican 
institutions must be extinguished in the 
dark continent of Africa, then we can 
take to ourselves this consolation that the 
magnificent republic of the western world 
never added one drop to the cup of sor- 
row that was drained to the last dregs by 
the exterminated heroes of the African 
veldt. (Tremendous applause and cheers.) 



The chairman: I now have the pleasure 
of introducing Mr. Lomen who will speak 
to you upon this subject. 

ADDRESS BY MR. G. J. LOMEN. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: The hour is 
getting late and I will not take very 
much of your time. You have been in 
South Africa so long that I presume you 
will be glad to get back into God's coun- 
try. 

It is natural on an occasion such as this 



49 

that we should think of our own Hevolu- 
tionary fathers. Washington, Hamilton, 
Adams and Jefferson are dead, but their 
souls go marching on. "No age will 
come," said Daniel Webster in eulogizing 
Adams and Jefferson, "When the Ameri- 
can Revolution will seem less than it now 
is." "No age will come," said he "when 
it will not be felt on either continent." 
One would have supposed that the lessons 
of experience, ever the best, would have 
been such as to have impressed upon the 
mind and heart of England its duty on 
an occasion such as was presented in the 
case of the Transvaal. The lessons taught 
by the American Revolution were such 
that England ought not soon to have for- 
gotten them. The lesson as taught by 
the American Declaration of Independ- 
ence was, among other things, a decent 
respect for the opinions of mankind. The 
lessons taught by the Declaration of In- 
dependence was a fair value of the in- 
alienable rights of man, of life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness. The Dec- 
laration taught that to preserve these, 
government was instituted among men, 
deriving its just powers from the consent 
of the governed. The Declaration of A- 
merioan Independence taught that 
these powers should be organized 
in such form as to them, the people, 
seemed most likely to effect their safety 
and happiness. And it is apropos to 
ask here to-night, whence came these 
principles? My answer is that they came 
across the Waters in the Mayflower and 
the Half Moon ; that thev came from that 
land which for eleven years gave our 
pilgrim fathers an asylum; came from 
that land which had declared its own 
independence and sent to South Africa 
the Boer; came from that land 
which gave to the world its greyest 



50 

civilizing agent — ^a ol^eap Bible, Because 
it was Laurence — ^what's his name? (A 
voice : Koster) Koster — Laurence 
Koster, who invented the types 
which made the Bible cheap. 
Those principles came from the 
land which produced Grotius, who 
laid broad and deep the foundations of 
international law and the peaceful arbi- 
tration of states. Do you wonder, then, 
that Oom Paul — ^that President Kruger 
in his ultimatum to England proposed 
peaceful arbitration. The principles of 
the Declaration of American Independence 
were brought with our Pilgrim Fathers 
when they came from Holland, from Delft 
Haven, from a land where our pilgrim 
ancestors had learned to value toleration 
in matters of church. The doctrines 
there taught were the foundation for our 
own religious liberty. And that is not 
all. Holland, at the time of the sojourn 
of our American ancestors, was the most 
intelligent, the most liberty-loving, the 
most liberal nation, in Europe. Holland 
or the Netherlands, at that time had a 
system of universal education, a system 
that laid the foundation for our own com- 
mon schools. It was from this same 
stock, this Holland stock, that the Boer 
sprang. And, ladies and gentlemen, it 
is these descendants of that Holland 
stock that the English in these latter days 
of the nineteenth century want to civil- 
ize! (Applause.) 

We are asked if we can lend to the 
Boer our sympathy? It is strange that 
such a question should be asked of an 
American audience. America who her- 
self threw off the yoke of oppression; 
America who in early times lent hope to 
bleeding Greece, to Bleeding Poland, who 
gave succor to Ireland, who banished 



I 



51 

despotism from Mexico and from the 
fairest islands of the sea — it is strange, 
I say, that she should be asked whether 
she can give sympathy to the Boers. (Ap- 
plause.) 

But it is suggested, we are a heterogen- 
eous nation. It is dMcult to know just 
what is meant by an American citizen. 
Then I say ask the brother of Kosciusko 
whether he can sympathize. Ask of the 
Swede who remembers the loss of Fin- 
land, with whom do you sympathize? 
Ask of the German cousin or the Dutch 
brother of the Boer with whom do you 
sympathize? Ask of the Irish, the neigh- 
bor to England, with whom do you 
sympathize? Ask of the Norwegian, who 
celebrates the independence of 1814, with 
whom do you sympathize? Ask of all the 
people who have come under the influence 
of the Declaration of Independence with 
whom they sympathize, and the refrain 
is ever the same: "Our liberties we 
prize," "our rights we will maintain." 
The beacon light of liberty that we have 
erected shall throw its rays across the 
oceans to the oppressed of all lands. I 
thank you. (Applause.) 



The Chairman, Ladies and Gentle- 
men: The genius of Ireland has never 
and can never be crushed. (Applause.) 
The love of liberty, a brave heart, a 
stout arm and an eloquent tongue, ever 
maintain her virtues and keep in mem- 
ory her illustrious past. (Applause.) 

I have the pleasure of introducing 
now, the Hon. C. D. O'Brien, who will 
address you. 

ADDRESS BY HON. C. D. O'BRIEN. 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens: 
I am thankful for the pleasure and 
the honor of being with you this even- 



52 

ing and of saying a word or two to 
you in your consultations. 

The American people hare a cus- 
tom which is as old as the republic, a 
custom that is only resorted to when 
necessity arises, when the occasion de- 
mands it. At other times we go about 
our usual avocations, we take our in- 
formation from the newspapiers and 
from friendly gossip, but when the in- 
stinct of the American people beholds 
on the horizon a cloud that in any wise 
or to any extent threatens this repub- 
lic or human liberty, they rise in their 
sovereignty and assemble in their 
mass meetings as you are as'sembled 
here to-night; (applause) not by their 
representatives in legislative halls; 
not by their public servants in public 
offices, but in the mass meeting of the 
people, the sovereign people, sitting in 
their own congress, to give to their 
servants the ultimate orders, the wish- 
es of the American people, — do thus 
because we who are your masters or- 
der you to do it. (Applause.) 

And so to-night you represent the 
solemn magnificent sovereignty of the 
American people, within the lines of 
this community of which we are mem- 
bers; and you have left your business 
and your pleasures and your avoca- 
tions, to meet together face to face, to 
hear, consider, consult and determine 
what shall be the action of the Ameri- 
can people upon the question that is 
presented to you. And what is it? 
Never since the days of the American 
revolution has such a spectacle been 
seen: A little band of people, men, 
women and children, less in number 
than the population of this and our 
sister city, in far-ofC Africa, stand to- 
day, the men back to back (without 
word or whimper), in a circle around^ 
their women and their children (who 



53 

s-end up no cry), battling for their lives 
because they choose to love their God 
and the liberty that He gave thejn. 
(Applause.) It is not for idle pastime 
that the God who created us permits 
such spectacles to occur; it is not for 
us to pasi5 by in indifference; because 
the least of His children is dear to 
Him. He that notes the fall of the 
sparrow remembers the human soul 
and the body in which during life it is 
encased. And so almighty God on this 
occasion has His purpose in calling 
the attention of the American people 
to the tragedy which is going on 
across the ocean, down deep in the 
dark continent that has been spoken 
of. And if you will consider for just 
one moment you will see the similarity 
between the cause of the contest now 
taking place, and that love of freedom 
which ennobled the fathers in their 
war of 1776. When the continent of 
America was discovered, the nations of 
Europe stood back. It was a savage 
land, inhabited by savage beasts and 
still more savage men, and the immi- 
gration to it was merely of the adven- 
turer or the sailor who sought its 
shores, or those who were oppressed 
in their own country. And Henry 
Hudson, the Hollander, sailed up the 
river that bears his name, and the col- 
ony of New Amsterdam was settled in 
New York by the ancestors of the peo- 
ple who are fighting and dying to-day 
in the Transvaal. (Applause.) What 
next? From out the shores of Eng- 
land came the bond slave who was de- 
ported, and those free men who found 
life intolerable under her government, 
and they came out and settled along 
the shores of Massachusetts and the 
East. And then the nations of the 
earth looked on and saw the land was 
good, and the French reached out and 



54 

set their feet on Canada, and later and 
lagging came the stately Spain and 
^siezed on Florida, and it seemed to the 
nations and the monarchies of earth 
that perhaps the American continent 
would fill full their coffers and give 
them yet additional people to serve 
them. And so in a European war 
England wrested the Dutch colony of 
New Amsterdam from its . founders, 
and then she set up discussion between 
the New England colonies and their 
Canadian neighbors, and with the help 
of those colonists she wrested from 
France the right to settle in Canada. 
And when all foreign powers were 
gone from this continent and England 
was supreme, she started in upon her 
own colonists and attempted to grind 
them and tax them to death and de- 
prive them of their liberty. But God, 
God whose eldest daughter. Liberty, 
was among them, had been teaching 
those men in the interval, and a few 
of them gathered together, and they 
wrote that gospel of human liberty, 
.the Declaration of Independence of the 
United States. (Applause.) "We hold 
these truths to be self-evident, that 
all men are born free and equal." That 
sentence has been from that time the 
inspiration of the country which has 
grown to the magnificence of which 
we know. Under it the rights of man 
have been settled. Under it the hum- 
blest citizen is the equal of the high- 
est. Under it the people are the mas- 
ters and their officers are their serv- 
ants. And under it the grandson of 
an Irish immigrant sits to-day in the 
executive chair of this republic. (Ap- 
plause.) 

A voice: I guess they've got him 
hypnotized. (Laughter.) 

Mr. O'Brien: Well, then it is for 
the people to wake him up. 



55 

Now comes the similarity. Cape Col- 
ony was settled by these same Dutch, 
these burghers. The history of the 
other colonizations of the world and 
the other nations has gone on. It is 
only within a few short years that they 
have learned that Africa has become 
habitable, and to-day upon those 
plains, against the republic that has 
sprung up, these same practices are 
being carried on that were tried and 
failed in 1776. And why did they fail 
in lr^6? Because in the settlement of 
this country, because in the conquer- 
ing of the forests, and in the plough- 
ing of the prairie, in the earning of 
their bread by the sweat of their brow, 
in the name of liberty and under the 
eye of the Almighty, the American 
farmer and the American citizen, and 
the American shepherd, and the Amer- 
ican rancher, learned to shoot; and so 
did the burgher in South Africa. (Ap- 
plause.) I tell you, my friends, the 
contest is not between the English 
people and the Boers. God knows that 
I do not hate them. I hate no man. 
But I hate, and I should be false to 
my race and to my blood, if I did not 
hate with a bitterness beyond expres- 
sion, the English government and the 
English aristocracy that never allows 
a man justice, liberty and right. (Ap- 
plause.) And no American citizen will 
believe in a system which says that 
the man who is born here is of one 
class and the man who is born there 
is of another; of a system which says 
that the blood that runs in one man's 
veins is blue and that which runs in 
another man's veins is red. That the 
bone and the sinew and the muscle are 
of fine fibre in the aristocrat, while in 
the common man they are coarse. 
And nieither leprosy, or illegitimacy, 
nor their children's disease the king's 



56 

evil, can change it in their • mind! 
(Applause and laughter.) 

The English people — what have they 
to do with this or any other act of 
their government? How . much had 
the English people to do with placing 
on their throne, for the admiration of 
their aristocracy, the eighteen-year- 
old girl who became their queen? 
How much have they to say to-day as 
to who her successor shall be, or his 
successor, or anything else? It is the 
same old struggle, the same old strug- 
gle, between republicanism, freedom, 
and aristocracy, that is being fought 
out in Africa, with the expectation 
that if it is successful there our lib- 
erties may also be sapped, not with 
the rifle and with the cannon, but 
with the insidious means that are be- 
ing used every day. 
, Who says we shall not express our- 
selves? Who gives us orders? What 
is the rule? Who is the sovereign in 
the United States? Is it not the citi- 
zen? What are our representatives, 
whether in the executive or legisla- 
tive place? They are our servants, 
employed by us, paid by us, and hold- 
ing their positions upon the one con- 
-dition that they shall be true to the 
people and to the constitution that 
permits them to serve. (Applause.) 
And to whom shall they answer? They 
shall answer to us and to no one else, 
and they shall know the voice of their 
masters or else they shall not be fit 
to serve. 

It is late. I will not detain- you long. 
There are others, better able than my- 
self to speak to you. I trust men who 
thought to-night that they would hear 
me use abuse of England or the Eng- 
lish people will not be disappointed 
because I seek within my poor efforts 
.to rise to the level of a meeting of the 



57 

sovereign citizens of the United States. 

It has been said of those people that 
they did not give the religion that I 
believe, fair sway among them. Why, 
what is that to us? A man's religion 
is between him and his God, and he 
who claims the right to worship ac- 
cording to his own conscience concerns 
himself not with the views of other 
men; if he may pray, let other men do 
as they will. (Applause.) 

There are some things that I believe 
as I believe in my God, my religion, 
and my republic. And this I do be- 
lieve: that when from the South Afri- 
can battlefields the immortal soul of 
some burgher, whose body lies gashed 
and shattered by a lyddite shell or a 
dum-dum bullet, flies up to the chancel 
of heaven, there to be judged by the 
Almighty God, who will judge us all, 
that soul will have the right to sum- 
mon witnesses; and whom will they 
summon? Who will step out to testify 
upon the judgment as to that burgher's 
soul? I see the list. They come head- 
ed by George Washington, Jefferson, 
Adams, the fathers of the American 
republic. And behind them come the 
men who died for liberty at Lexing- 
ton, at Concord, at Yorktown, and at 
Bunker Hill. And again behind them 
come others — Jackson and the brown 
riflemen who stood for liberty behind 
the cotton bales at New Orleans, when 
three thousand of them drove back 
eleven thousand of the English and 
saved this republic again. (Applause.) 
And with them come the other veter- 
ans of the war of 1812. And still be- 
hind them come the men who died for 
freedom in the war of 18b5, and the 
men who led them — Grant, Sherman 
and Sheridan — marching behind, and 
there is that magnificent martyr of hu- 
man liberty who stands by the side of 



ItL 



5S 

God upon this question— Abraham Lin- 
coln. (Great applause.) And behind 
them are all the men who died for lib- 
erty in 1865. And we, too, my friends, 
we, too, my fellow citizens, are repre- 
sented; for in that immortal throng 
of witnesses also stand the recent 
dead, the boyB who gave their lives at 
liberty's call to free the mixed races 
of Cuba — they, too, are there to tes- 
tify for the burgher. (Applause.) And 
when the great Master and the great 
Judge shall ask of these witnesses, 
''What have you to say as to this hu- 
man soul whose body lies in the Afri- 
can dust, what have you to say?" The 
answer will come, our God, our Lord, 
our Judge, the body of this man who 
is dead, his body died and died for 
liberty. And then will come the judg- 
ment that none but those deserve, 
**Well done, well done, thou good and 
faithful servant; because thou hast 
been faithful in all things, enter into 
the joy of the blessed reserved for 
thee." That is my belief of the bur- 
gher judgment and the burgher soul. 
If I were fit to pray, if I were fit to 
reach the canopies of heaven and 
reach the chancel of heaven with 
prayer, I would pray again to God, God 
who made me and whom I seek to rev- 
erence, and ask him to stand for, to 
defend, to protect and to make victori- 
ous, the men who are dying to-day in 
Africa, without murmur, without a 
word, because, thank God, they love 
liberty better than they do their lives. 
(Great applause.) 

The Chairman, Ladies and Gentle- 
men: The executive committee hav- 
ing in charge the arrangements for the 
evening thought it proper to submit 
for the consideration of this meeting 
some resolutions. They are very brief, 



59 



and I trust the audience will remain 
while they a-re read. 



The chairman then read the resolu- 
tions as follows: 

"It appears that the British govern- 
ment claims to be justified in waging 
war upon the Boer republics, mainly 
because they do not allow that right 
of franchise which is insisted upon by 
the English government, and also be- 
cause they impose an unjust tax upon 
the exports of the mines. It should be 
borne in mind that the Boer republic 
only imposes a license of five per 
cent upon the net output of the mines, 
while the Dominion to the north of us, 
British Columbia, imposes a license of 
ten per cent. In answer to the claim 
that the Boers do hot grant the fran- 
chise to aliens, it must be remembered 
that before the Salisbury government 
declared war upon the Boers, the 
Boers reduced the residence limit of 
foreigners to five years. They made 
this concession to avoid war with a 
great and seemingly irresistible power. 
This is the limit fixed in the United 
States. And while it is true that no 
foreigner can be elected to the upper 
house of the legislature, it must be 
borne in mind that no foreigner, ex- 
cept by special dispensation of the gov- 
ernment, is eligible to the upper 
branch of the English legislative body. 
No civilized nation does nor can per- 
mit a foreign nation to dictate the 
terms of its naturalizaton laws. It ap- 
pearing that the war waged by the 
Salisbury government against the Boer 
republics is wholly unjustified, there- 
fore, be it 

Resolved, That the citizens of St. 
Paul here assembled in mass meeting, 
and representing all creeds, races, and 
political beliefs, declare that when 



60 

Chamberlain stated that the American 
people were in sympathy, with his ef- 
fort to crush out the Boer republics, 
he not only misjudged the character of j 
the American people, but forgot that 
the Boers are only repeating the strug- 
gle we made more than a century ago, 
except that we then revolted against 
the British crown, while the Boers are 
struggling to maintain a government 
which has been twice recognized by 
the English government in treaty con- 
ventions. We therefore, most em- 
phatically refute the base insinuation 
that the American people sympathize 
in the effort of the English govern- 
ment, represented by the Salisbury 
ministry, to overthrow and crush out 
a sister republic. It is further 

Resolved, That we unhesitatingly 
declare that it is our earnest hope that 
in this struggle the Boers will be able 
to maintain their national existence 
and retain their national independence. 
It is further 

Resolved, That in view of the grow- 
ing sentiment among civilized nations 
to submit matters of difference to ar- 
bitration, if there was any real differ- 
ence between the English government 
and the Boer republics it is greatly to 
be regretted that such difference was 
not submitted to arbitration in accord- 
ance with the earnest wish of the Boer 
republics, made before resorting to 
arms, especially in view of the great 
disparity in the power and strength of 
the two nations. It is further 

Resolved, xhat copies of these reso- 
lutions be sent to our senators and 
representatives." 

Mr. C. D. O'Brien: Mr. Chairman, 
I move that these resolutions be adopt- 
ed by a rising vote. 

The Chairman: It is moved that 
these resolutions be adopted by a ris- 



61 



ing vote. All in favor of the resolu- 
tions will arise. 

The audience arose and gave three 
cheers and a tiger. 




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